Hermiston
Herald
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2016
HermistonHerald.com
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BULLDOGS
COMEBACK
FALLS
SHORT
SPORTS
Page 9
ABOUT TOWN
COURTESY PHOTO
U.S. Rep. Greg Walden,
a Republican, has
represented Oregon’s 2nd
congressional district
since 1999.
Walden to
make local
stops Friday
STAFF PHOTOS BY GARY L. WEST
A Hermiston Police cruiser leads parade a peace walk down Main Street Monday, Jan. 18, in celebration of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
7rafÀ c control and participation in maMor city eYents are some of the functions the police department performs regularly.
CRIME RATE FLAT,
VIOLENT CRIME DOWN
H
By PHIL WRIGHT
Staff Writer
ermiston police of¿ cers initiated more ac-
tions on their own in 2015 as calls for ser-
vice fell to a 10-year-low. And violent crime
shifted down from the year before, but crime
overall remained stagnant through 2015.
Hermiston police Chief Jason Edmiston
has released his department’s annual crime statistics,
which measure crime across eight categories. While
individual types varied, Hermiston had 524 reported
crimes in 2015, just one more than in 2014. Still,
that was a 35 percent drop from the city’s 10-year
average.
Violent crime — homicide, rape, robbery and ag-
gravated assault — fell from 24 incidents in 2014 to
21 in 2015, however the city had its ¿ rst homicide
since 2012 and assaults jumped from eight to 12.
Assaults are 56 percent lower than the 10-year-aver-
age, but after a low of four in 2013 are trending up.
Edmiston said in the report that the department will
monitor that for causation purposes.
Burglaries hit 53 last year, 22 fewer than in 2014
and the lowest in the city in a decade. Edmiston stat-
ed curbing that crime has been a focus since he be-
came chief in 2012.
Property crime ticked up 1 percent in 2015, pri-
marily due to an increase in larceny from 388 inci-
dents to 413.
³Shoplifting accounts for a signi¿ cant chunk of
that larceny,” Edmiston said. It is not unusual for of-
¿ cers to respond to shoplifting calls at Walmart two
to three times per shift, he said.
Hermiston police also took 10,032 calls for ser-
vice in 2015, almost 2,100 fewer than in 2014. Ed-
miston in the report stated that was concerning to
him, but he was con¿ dent some of the decline has
to do with tracking information that comes into the
police department compared to when the city had its
own dispatch center. Dispatching was consolidated
with Umatilla County in 2014, Edmiston said.
See CRIME, A16
STAFF PHOTOS BY GARY L. WEST
Juan Balli of the Hermiston Police Department blocks off a portion of Main
Street for the Martin Luther King Jr. parade Monday. Chief Jason Edmiston calls
Hermiston Police a fullserYice department.
DID YOU KNOW
The following are other details
about Hermiston Police from the
department 2015 crime report.
• The average offi cer is 41
years of age and has a little
less than 13 years of law
enforcement experience. There
are 26 offi cers on staff .
• Nearly one in three people
in the department (30 percent)
has a college degree. Four paid
employees have a bachelor’s degree
and fi ve have an associate’s degree. Six
staff members are currently working to
continue their formal education. Three
are pursuing master’s degrees, one is
working toward a bachelor’s degree and
two are seeking associate’s degrees.
• The average length of time paid
employees have lived in the area is just
less than 22 years. There are 30 paid staff
in the department and nine volunteers.
• Nearly one of every four people in
the department is bilingual (23 percent).
Rep. Greg Walden,
R-Hood River, will be
returning to his congres-
sional district later this
week, including sever-
al stops in Umatilla and
Morrow counties.
After town hall meet-
ings in Arlington and
Rufus, Walden will make
appearances in Board-
man, Hermiston and
Pendleton Friday.
According to a press
release, Walden will tour
the Boardman Tree Farm
at 1 p.m. and the Eastern
Oregon Trade and Event
Center
construction
site at 3:15 p.m. before
traveling to Pendleton
to attend the Pendleton
Chamber of Commerce’s
First Citizens Banquet at
the Wildhorse Casino and
Resort at 5:30 p.m.
County hears of
need for new
fi re district
On Tuesday, the Uma-
tilla County Commission
held a public hearing on
the proposed May ballot
measure to combine the
Hermiston and Stan¿ eld
¿ re districts.
No members of the pub-
lic were present for com-
ment, but Hermiston Fire
Chief Scott Stanton laid out
the case for the new district.
He said as calls for ser-
vice in the Hermiston/
Stan¿ eld area increased
but staf¿ ng levels stayed
the same, the district
had
more
instances
where someone called
for an ambulance and
one wasn’t available. On
Monday, for example, he
said there were 25 calls
for service and two “out-
right delays.”
“Eventually someone
is going to lose their life,”
he said.
Hermiston peace walk honors Martin Luther King Jr.
Event celebrates civil
rights progress, struggle
By JADE MCDOWELL
Staff Writer
STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS
Marchers make their way down Main Street while celebrating Martin Luther
King Jr. Day on Monday in Hermiston.
Hermiston residents honored
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s leg-
acy Monday with a peace walk
through downtown and a cere-
mony at First United Methodist
Church.
Keynote speaker Dawn Rome,
one of the Hermiston Black Inter-
national Awareness Club’s found-
ing members, quoted from King’s
famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
“Take a look at this room,” she
said, gesturing to the church full
of black, Hispanic and white com-
munity members sitting side by
side. “This is literally the dream
right here.”
Though the world might be
a different, less-segregated one
than it was during King’s lifetime,
Rome said his ideals of tolerance,
equality and nonviolence are still
relevant today.
She asked how many people in
the room had bought a lottery tick-
et recently with dreams of win-
ning the biggest Powerball jackpot
in history. Rome said for a week
she listened to friends and family
talk about the ways they could use
the money for good, from buy-
ing a home for a family member
to adopting children from Africa.
What she wanted to know is why
so many people seemed to think
See PEACE, A16